This one is going to be ACTIVE. Hope I can keep up.
Do you have to burp it or can you just do a one way seal? When I do custard or alcohol infusions in Mason jars with my sous vide circulator, I just tighten the lids, then loosen 1/12 of one turn. Water stays put but air can escape as pressure goes up. Wouldn’t that work here?
Probably would work but I like to keep a little extra CO2 in solution when it settles and want to make sure there is no oxygen as I do not do extreme cleaning steps like I probably should.
What are we looking at? Pineapple and sugar and water?
Do you airlock it?
Pineapple, mined salt, water. It gets a sealed lid and then burped a few times a day. Nothing special, nothing bought, nothing fancy. It is just the oldest form of wild fermentation like it was done in prehistory.
Ah, cool. Anoxic lactoferment, then. That does sound good. Like sauerkraut.
Can you explain what the process is?
It is wild fermentation using a salt brine. It is the oldest and most fundamental form of fermentation. It just takes around 3% of a natural salt, some water, time, some kind of sugar or food for microbes to digest, and a sealed container. The container must be burped regularly or the pressure will build until it explodes in the worst cases. The lack of oxygen is key to stop most mold growth. Mold is the enemy. Microbes are you’re drinking buddies. They are everywhere. Wild fermentation is random in results. There is no telling which microbe present will dominate the mix. Generally, it will be one of the ones that naturally live in and on the fruit. One way to make cool stuff is to mix fruits in ways where the microbes from one can use it to dominate another. Like toss a local apple in a food processor whole, let it go off in a container for a couple of days until it is very active, then toss this into a container of grape juice that is not active yet.
What will it be? I always feel bad throwing away so much pinaple.
It makes a killer brew. Something about it is different and super dense in microbe growth. It is one of the only things I’ve tried that can go off for ages, keep going, and still tastes sweet and like a liquor. It is the best for complex sauces. Once you taste it, you’ll recognise the flavor as familiar to candies and things you’ve never quite known what was creating the flavor. Fermentation changes everything but this one stays closer to the original than most others. I bottled it like 4-5 hours ago, just went to bed, and it is already showing a small bubble stream like a glass of champagne even after a 3% salt brine. The salt didn’t even phase what was already there.
The salt definitely phased what was already there, it stopped yeast activity, that’s why this ferment remains sweet. If yeast was active it’d eliminate all the sugar quickly.
Fermentation is organic substrate like glucose->other things, anaerobically. You don’t get alcohol without sugar being converted to ethanol. The bacteria or yeast doing so can have different byproducts depending on substrate and the fermenting organism(s). Now the more complex sugars present in a fibrous fruit like pineapple does probably result in more sugar left than usual. Additionally pineapple acidity may also reduce the direct fermentation capability. If you do as with grains where you cook and macerate it and/or increase the pH some you’d probably be able to reduce the leftover sugar sweetness more while increasing the alcohol and sour notes.
Whoa! Would love to try this. How do I?
Bet this would elevate my Caribbean pepper sauce.
Wild fermentation is just a 3% salt brine and a sealed container that you burp every few hours to let pressure out. It can explode if too much pressure builds.
Are you making Tepache or something else?
I don’t usually use a brine when I make Tepache, but maybe this is a different recipe.
